The Crew - Miss Fabulous, Lil Bro, Big Sis and Mr. Man

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Here's the thing


It's midnight and I should be off to bed already but my head is full of random thoughts so I am going to put them here.


Tonight I was helping Miss M with her homework and we were working on some math. She gets these hang ups on things. We think she had it, but she didn't. Or didn't fully have it. Or didn't put all the pieces with it that went. For instance she is constantly getting math problems wrong that have 0 in them. Weeks ago they taught what zero meant. She wrote that it meant "you don't have one." And indicated Mom. Anyway, I was explaining that anything plus zero is the same as adding nothing to what you already have. I used pennies as a visual. She looked at me with this ah-ha moment and said "oh." "I thought I knew it but I didn't knew it." In Miss M speak that seemed to mean that she had it now. She did the rest of the 0 problems correctly.


She can't make a figure 8. She will do it sideways and then she knows that's wrong. I showed her to do two 0's on top of each other and there you go. Not the proper way but it works. She was getting frustrated and I thought let's just skip this upset shall we. So she does it that way most of the time and from time to time seems to want to master the whole figure 8 thing but by master it I mean she just wants it to go her way and to not have to work for it and when it doesn't go that way she wants to get mad or move on. Personally I prefer the moving on option and so encourage the "snowman" figure 8.


These darn glasses! I knew they would be an issue and they are. Constantly disappearing. Wears them here and there and doesn't want to wear them here or there. I just make it a "your choice" issue. Being that she was going through life just fine without glasses and it was a total shock all the way around that she needed glasses I say whatever ya want babe. It isn't like Mr. C and the eye crossing stuff and he has to wear the glasses. So there.


Miss M revealed that she flicks people at school "but not at home cause that's not okay, right?" Oh, you flick people at school huh? "Yeah like I flick Joshua and he tells me to shut up and I told Mrs. Teacher that he said that to me and Joshua got his bone (behavior chart hound dog thing) move 3 places!" Oh yeah, huh?


She seemed pretty proud of herself that she told on Joshua.


One thing that is becoming more clear lately is that Miss M does not understand that her actions prior to the kid telling her to shut up are a part of the problem. Does not get it. At home she has started back with some of her bullying behavior toward Big Sis. The same kind of stuff that she is pulling at school, and not getting caught at. So Big Sis has said no thank you to playing with Miss M when Miss M asks. Miss M was really upset about it this weekend and said with Oscar winning performance "I thought Big Sis was my friend but I guess she's not!" And then the boo-hoos came rolling. I talked with Miss M and asked her if she had played nice the last time she played with Big Sis. She did the shoulder shrug I don't want to answer thing. I brought up some of the occurrences and she agreed that is what had happened. I asked was that nice behavior? Good choices? She answered correctly because she has the dialog down pat but it isn't really her answer which is the sad part. She seems to play the roll, good or bad but never understands. She went right back expressing how she felt wronged by Big Sis who didn't want to play with her. I asked her if she was upset that she had made bad choices and those choices were the reason that Big Sis did not want to play or was she just mad that Big Sis didn't want to play. She said she was just mad that Big Sis didn't want to play.


Lord we have been teaching these lessons in so many different ways for this child since she was 2 and a half. Is is ever going to click?


It's the same with the bullying behavior at school. She does not connect, accept whatever the part where she did wrong in the first place and that lead the other child to do what they did. I hope that we are going in the right direction for her to one day get it.
(art work by Robert David Bretz)

2 comments:

Jeri said...

How does she react when big sis goes to play with other friends? Or has friends over? Wondering if she'd "get it" better from someone that is not family. If big sis wouldn't include her and listed specific behaviors as why, it might have more impact. Just guessing though. I know what you mean by they've had the same lessons over and over and still they engage in the same behavior. Sheesh!

Mom 4 Kids said...

Thanks for the feed back Jeri. Yeah we've gone that route too. We are grateful to see progress overall but it has been such slow healing. It still boggles my mind how much damage was done in those first 2 years of life. I know that you know all too well about the impact of that early damage. Your son comes to my mind often and how blessed he is to have you loving him no matter what.